The Risk of Leading

Failing the mission. Team disfunction. Loss of resources, time, money, and people. These are all outcomes when leading. It’s scary to step into the role of a leader. Once you have decided to care for others the people and the mission become your responsibility. It’s terrifying knowing that the decisions you make could hinder the mission or the people around you. And if everything does go south, all fingers could point to you.

There is risk in leading, but that’s what makes a leader a leader. They understand things may not always work out and that the outcome is never guaranteed. Leaders take on the risk in order to achieve success, but they make decisions using their knowledge and experienced combined with the team’s knowledge and experience to make wise decisions. Leveraging the power of the team is necessary to reduce the risk. Leaders do this constantly and consistently.

Bottom line, it’s going to be scary. It’s going to be challenging and it’s going to be tough. There is no avoiding it. The greatest part about risk is that when it works right everybody wins! Innovation requires risk and without leaders pushing the boundaries of the line between failure and success innovation will not occur.

There is purpose to why we spend so much time developing our leadership abilities. The more prepared we are the higher chance we have at succeeding. The approach to risk always has the same liabilities, but the action to challenge it gets easier every time you take risk. It’ll never feel perfect or guaranteed, but the fear, the uncertainty goes away because you know it has to happen. People need to grow and the mission needs to be accomplished. We can’t halt everything just because we have to face a decision with risk.

Keep in mind risk will come in many forms, but don’t approach it alone. Use your team, the mission and the values that guide the culture to overcome it.